Memorial service held for sailors

As a young sailor wheeled himself up to a table at the front of the theater at Virginia Beach's Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, the handful of people standing in his path parted ways.

On the table stood pictures of three sailors killed in Iraq on July 6.

The first class petty officers -- Jason Lewis, a 30-year-old Navy SEAL; Steven P. Daugherty, a 28-year-old cryptologic technician; and Robert McRill, a 42-year-old combat photographer whose surviving wife and three children live in York County -- were assigned to a Little Creek SEAL team.

They died when their convoy was ambushed in Baghdad.

The sailor in the wheelchair was there.

He -- along with more than 1,000 other comrades, friends and family members -- came to Little Creek Wednesday for a memorial service.

It was before the service that he arrived at the table and paused by each picture and the small memorials set up in front of each frame.

For Lewis, there was a dive mask, fins and a K-bar fighting knife. The muzzle of an M-4 was pushed inside dusty combat boots and set beside helmets for McRill and Daugherty.

Behind the table were three shadow boxes -- one for each family -- filled with U.S. flags flown by fellow SEAL teammates this week in Iraq.

"The only fear these men ever knew was the fear of failing one another," Chaplain Cory Cathcart said.

Navy Capt. Chaz Heron, commander of Naval Special Warfare Group Two, described them as men who "served ... to give those they never met a chance for hope and a better life."

On July 6, operating in the cover of darkness, the sailors headed into a dangerous and difficult region of Baghdad.

Their mission was time sensitive, Heron said, and they were targeting a "high-value individual."

It was as they were heading out of the dangerous area, having completed their mission, that they were ambushed. The enemy detonated an improvised explosive device, then launched an attack with small-arms fire "from multiple positions," Heron said.

Lewis, "bravely exposing himself to enemy fire, was mortally wounded trying to protect his team," according to his Bronze Star citation, which was read at the service.

All three sailors received the medal with valor.

"Rest in peace my brothers," the chaplain said at the conclusion of the nearly two-hour service, "now we have the watch."